"This classification should have led to the discovery and study of remedies which act specifically upon the various textures and tissues of the body, such as the cellular, serous, mucous, parenchymatous, fibrous, gelatinous, &c., but it did not, except in the most imperfect manner—so imperfect, in fact, that most pathologists, despairing of finding such remedies, at one time sank into all the peurilities^([sic – meaning puerilities]) of the "expectant mode" of the French, or the nihilisms of the German."
— 1863, John C. Peters, F[rederick] G. Snelling, “Section I. Of Medicine as a Science and as an Art; Its Objects and Its Extent.”, in Principles and Practice of Medicine, New York, N.Y.: William Radde, […], →OCLC, page 124:
"But there was also about him an indescribable air which no mechanic could have acquired in the practice of his handicraft however dishonestly exercised: [...] the air of moral nihilism common to keepers of gambling hells and disorderly houses; [...]"
— 1906 January–October, Joseph Conrad, chapter II, in The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale (Collection of British Authors; 3995), copyright edition, London: Bernhard Tauchnitz, published 1907, →OCLC, page 15:
"Anger at the system turned to anger against art. Damn that foolery too, which took, but never gave. A promise of achievement always withdrawn; an assurance of dignity and ease for ever vanishing over the skyline. The virus of communistic nihilism simmered within him, wishing to submerge all effort in an easily filled belly."
— 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 154:
"[T]he band members sweat hard enough to earn their pretensions, and maybe even their nihilism."
— 1983, Dave Marsh, “[Review of XTC’s album Go 2 (1978)]”, in Dave Marsh, John Swenson, editors, The New Rolling Stone Record Guide: […], 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Random House/Rolling Stone Press, →ISBN, page 560:
"[W]hat is most terrifying—including the perennial threat of cowardly terrorists—is the insidious growth of deadening nihilisms across political lines, nihilisms that have been suffocating the deep democratic energies in America. In Race Matters, I examined the increasing nihilism in black America as the "lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness.""
— 2004, Cornel West, “Nihilism in America”, in Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight against Imperialism, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Books, published 2005, →ISBN: